Mr. Chair, in my 30-some years in uniform, I've seen the numbers as high as 80,000 people and as low as the low 50,000s. We are now at 68,000 in the regular force; 27,000 balanced across full-time and part-time reserves; and about 25,000 to 26,000 in the public service as a defence team. You're asking me, someone who's been in for 35 years and seeing what has been provided to us as core missions, this question, and I think what we have coming out of Afghanistan, coming out of Libya, is a very nice balance.
The tasking in the Canada First defence strategy is to have a balanced, multi-role, combat-ready force. With 68,000 and 27,000 in reserves, I believe we can do that. It's nicely balanced against the three forces. The army remains the largest, the air force is next, and the navy is next. There will be some balance in that, but I think largely we have not only the personnel, but the equipment for the personnel and the infrastructure for the personnel we need.
You speak to readiness. It's always a balance between those four things. Once you have the personnel, the equipment, and the infrastructure, what you do with it provides the readiness. I know the honourable members around this table have been looking at that very carefully. That's probably the most complicated of those four columns. In terms of personnel, I'm quite pleased with the numbers we're at right now.
If I could add just one little more piece to that, one of the most heartening things about being at 68,000 now.... As we came up from the mid-50,000s to 68,000, that was a tremendous bite to swallow. We were taking in upwards of 7,000 to 8,000 a year, which had our schools full and our training lists full. Now, last year, we brought in about 4,000. That's all we needed to maintain because our retention rate is so high in the Canadian armed forces. That's allowed our schools to empty out and our training lists to come down. Our trained effective strength is quite impressive.